


in the january rain

by phcbosz



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M, War, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 01:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17839886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phcbosz/pseuds/phcbosz
Summary: And all Klaus has left to prove that any of it happened and wasn’t just one fucked up dream is a pair of bloody dog tags, a tattoo on his arm, and the taste of ash sticking to the roof of his mouth.





	in the january rain

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings for past suicide attempt, drug addiction, mentions of prostitution, self-harm, past child abuse
> 
> also i use commas too much, sometimes in places where i shouldnt.

He’s in the middle of a warzone. Considering the things, he has gone through, considering the way he was born, really, it’s not the weirdest thing to happen to him. Still, it comes as a shock.

Normally when people are screaming for him to put his pants on, they want him to hide under the bed, or get the fuck out. This time, they expect him to go to war.

Klaus would rather stay behind and not die, but that doesn’t seem to be a possibility, and since he is so good at thinking on his feet, he decides to just go with it for the time being, until he can figure things out.

He doesn’t know where he is. Everybody is speaking English but the last time he checked, there wasn’t any war going on. Still, he isn’t sure. He is not that good with keeping up with the news, to be honest. He learned that his father died in an ambulance after being resuscitated.

Klaus doesn’t know anything about history, he has never really paid attention, to anything, let alone what happened in the past.

He has a simple thinking and that’s whatever happened, happened, and knowing it won’t change anything. It really helps, when he looks back on his past only to find it filled with nothing solid, nothing you can grab, nothing you can hold onto to, say, yes, _my life had a purpose_ , yes, _I didn’t just waste it._

It helps, sometimes, when Ben is getting too loud, and Klaus is too high, and the ghosts are there, even though he is high enough to mistake his reflection in the mirror as an enemy from the past, something he must destroy, something he must fight to accomplish anything in his life—it helps, sometimes, when dad shows up.

There are some ghosts, that never really let you go, that you never really let go off. Even before dad was dead, his ghost haunted Klaus in a way that only his real self could do, in a way that no one else could.

So, whatever happened, happened, and it doesn’t matter, nothing really does. One day, Klaus is going to die, and nobody will even realize, and nothing in the world will change, and it won’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, with how big the universe is, and how small Klaus feels, it seems as if nothing matters at all.

But being in the past now, being stuck there, he wishes he had learned a thing or two.

War, he soon finds out, is cruel. It shouldn’t be such a surprise, but it is. The moment they step over to the battleground, it proves to not be a battleground at all. It’s hell on earth, and it’s so loud that the ground beneath his feet is shaking. His whole body is shaking actually.

There is a gun in his hands, and they expect him to kill people with it, and if he doesn’t, those people are going to kill him. War, is confusing. And fast.

It goes by in the blink of an eye, and time is warped on a battleground, it’s just one bullet before the next, one body falling after the other, and people keep dying around him; the sound of a helicopter flying up close is deafening his ears, until all he can hear is the sound of gunshots and his blood rushing through his veins, warm and oh-so-ready to be let out.

People are yelling, in the background. People are screaming. Klaus can’t focus enough to figure out what they are saying.

A lot of people die in war. Their ghosts don’t leave the battleground, as if they are still fighting, because that’s what soldiers do, soldiers fight, until the war ends, and then they wait, until the next war starts, and then they fight again, a loop they are stuck in, a vicious cycle that never stops.

A bullet passes right beside his ear, splitting the air, and the sound it makes echoes inside the desert of his mind for a long time.

It’s a sad life he has lived, up until that point, and he is sober enough to feel a little bit of regret, just a shred of sadness that once consumed him.

He is going to die there, in a war when he doesn’t even know what it is about, what it means, if they win, if any of it means anything—he is going to die there, and it won’t matter, to anyone, to anything.

Klaus knows his siblings like the back of his hand or the inside of a man’s thighs. They will think that he just left again, that he is getting high somewhere, moaning under somebody without a name.

See, they will think he just left, and it will be a long, long time before they even entertain the idea that he might be dead. Maybe they will just ignore it, maybe they will realize the truth, but whatever happens, they won’t care.

Klaus is not scared of dying. He’s been dead a few times, only to be brought back. Some of those times were accidents, some he did to himself. They always brought him back, somehow. Pumped his stomach, stitched up his arms, sent him to rehab for a month.

But after so many times of getting close to it, after so many times of seeing the white light, smelling the rotting flesh, tasting the blood in his mouth—Klaus can embrace death like an old friend.

He isn’t scared of dying at all, but it does make him kind of sad that his existence doesn’t mean anything at all, that he was born without a purpose, and he is going to die without it.

And then there is also something beautiful about it. No matter how much dad tried to train them into believing it, no matter how many times dad believed it, Klaus was never meant to save the universe, or a play a part in anything of the sort. He is going to die in a war he doesn't know anything about after only a day of being there, and it won’t matter, and nothing will matter; the only proof of his existence the magazines that he posed for when he was a kid.

After that, it all happens too fast. Everything happens too fast, all the time.

He doesn’t die.

*

 

He meets Dave on the bus, with the briefcase safely tucked between his feet. Dave is kind, and beautiful.

Klaus knows he has to figure out the briefcase and teleport back to the academy as soon as he can, but still, until he can do that, Dave is a good enough distraction to pass time.

But once you get distracted with Dave, you get lost, in Dave, Klaus learns. Dave is something else, really. They are going to war, and here Dave is, all smiles and blind optimism, and honestly, it should be off-putting, but it suits Dave in a way that leaves Klaus gaping, because somehow, he is not annoyed but he is kind of into it.

The shock comes after Klaus manages to ask Dave where they are, without making it too obvious, or trying to not make it obvious. It’s just one shock after another. Klaus is in 1968. He has somehow managed to time travel, when he was just looking for some money so he could buy drugs. It’s kind of funny, once you think about it, but Klaus doesn’t have time to think, because he needs to get out of there fast, and time is quickly running out.

 

*

He can’t figure it out. There is nothing on the briefcase that could point him to a direction, nothing that gives out what it contains—he could just try to open it again, but he doesn’t want to get sent off to another timeline, to the past, or the future, he doesn’t want to mess with it any more than he has.

Without opening it, he can’t figure out anything. He bangs his head on walls, pulls on his hair, scratches at his arms until they bleed.

He is stuck in the past, with a war right outside his door and a war beneath his skin.

*

One night, he dreams. He has been sober for too long and there is only a little amount of time a man can go with voices inside his head, with voices screaming at him, before a man explodes.

He wakes up panting, with a scream stuck in his throat, and he has been sweating so much that he could swim on his bed.

“You okay?” The voice is so close that Klaus almost jumps with surprise, almost doesn’t succeed in suppressing his sharp flinch. It’s Dave. Of course it is.

The air around them is cold, and uncertain, and it is bending. Time is a concept that Klaus can’t even begin to understand, because ever since he came there, minutes have been going on for hours, and days will be turned to dust in one blink. It’s probably a side effect of time travelling, but maybe he is just going mad.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves the man off with a hand, then hugs his torso for some warmth. He is shivering, he notices only then. It’s cold, and the air is dark, making it impossible to see anything but the ghosts surrounding him.

“You sure?”

Klaus has been there for a couple of days, just how many he isn’t sure, but they feel like years, inside the desert of his mind. Him and Dave are starting to be friends, but Klaus doesn’t really want any friends, considering all these people are going to die, if not in the war, then in the war after that, because that’s what people do in the 60’s, people just die, and people keep dying.

“Is there anywhere around here that I could get drugs?” He asks, because they are in the middle of a war, but Klaus is used to it, really, because his whole life has been a battleground, ever since he learned how to walk, figured out how to speak, started to train to be a superhero, like any of it would mean something.

Dave is disappointed, Dave is sighing, Dave doesn’t understand.

“Or you could just try talking about it?” Dave suggests, and Klaus laughs then, before he presses his hand against his mouth to muffle it, because, around them, people are sleeping, because, around them, the world is dying.

“I see dead people.”

It’s funny to Klaus, but of course, Dave doesn’t get it. Dave understands something completely different. Dave looks away. Klaus tugs the blankets higher up his cold body, hugs him because there is nobody around to witness his little act of sadness. They sit there, in silence, everything quiet but the monsters screaming; they sit there in the darkness, and they don’t sleep, because dreams are way worse than anything that the world could throw at them, because they both know that sleeping is just practice for dying.

The next day, Dave takes him to a bar.

Getting to know Dave is a little like getting lost. Klaus is getting lost, in the ocean of Dave’s eyes, and they are bluer than any sky he has ever gazed at, darker than any sea he has swum in.

Getting drunk is familiar, and strange, and the way his body warps and bends makes him nauseous, and Ben is watching with disappointed eyes, because it was the longest Klaus had ever been sober since he was sixteen.

Ben, doesn’t understand. Nobody does. They don’t know that Klaus needs alcohol in his body to function, drugs in his blood to be able to live without going mad, because the voices never shut up, and sometimes they are angry, but mostly they are crying, and sometimes they are kids, and Klaus never really knows how to deal with it, he never really learned no matter how many times his dad locked him in a basement, and threw the key away in hopes that Klaus would stop being scared of the people following him—it didn’t work.

Klaus has never not been afraid, only when he is high as a kite, high enough to mistake his hands for his feet.

There are drugs at the bar too, and Klaus is finally feeling like himself again. Without all the monsters screaming, the world doesn’t seem too bad. Dave seems even hotter. Klaus thinks, _shit_ , I can work with this.

They are in the middle of a war, in the 60’s, and it seems like a good place as any to flirt.

Sex would be great too, really. Klaus can be a charmer, if he wants, if he tries, even though trying feels like dying, sometimes. He could probably charm the pants off of Dave, by the way the guy is touching him, feeling up his arms, the side of his neck, his cheek, where it seems innocent but is anything but—Dave wouldn’t say no.

For some reason, it doesn’t happen. Klaus doesn’t try hard enough, he doesn’t try at all.

It’s just Dave touching his arm, it’s Dave touching his leg, it’s Dave looking into his eyes, it’s Dave dancing with a smile, it’s Dave’s lips against his own, _it’s just Dave._

Kissing doesn’t mean anything to Klaus. Even sex doesn’t mean anything to him. He remembers being twenty-something and living in the streets, he remembers giving four guys blowjobs in the back of a dumpster, the city buzzing around them with activity, with people rushing to their jobs, with people rushing back to their houses, with people living, and people buzzing, and Klaus remembers gagging, not being able to talk for a few days with how sore his throat had left been—all for just one pill, all for just one hit.

He doesn’t regret it. Not one bit. What happened, happened, and hell, the high was definitely worth it, when the voices finally shut up, and Ben left with dry tears on his cheeks, and for the first time in days, it was quiet…

Sex doesn’t mean anything, kissing means even less.

But there is something about Dave, about his lips. Maybe Klaus is just horny—it’s been a while since he last had sex, but when Dave kisses him, there is a spark.

It’s like electricity, it burns and shocks Klaus, in the best way possible, and it connects their lips together, glues their bodies close, and Dave’s hand is on his neck, not squeezing, just the gentlest of touches, and the kiss is slow and sensual; Dave tastes of grapes and something that’s purely him, and Klaus feels like he is floating twelve inches off the ground.

It’s just a kiss. It’s nothing, really. But they are in the middle of a war, and Klaus is stuck in the 60’s, and Dave’s eyes are the bluest blue he has ever seen, deeper than any sea he has swum in, darker than any sky that has rained upon him.

It’s Dave, and it’s Klaus, and they kiss, and it means something.

*

A month or so passes. The war is still going. Klaus doesn’t know for how long it goes on, he knows it has to stop somewhere, but sometimes, when he is on the battleground, and the war keeps taking people and taking people, and when war doesn’t ever stop taking anything and everything… It feels like it will never end.

On those days, Klaus has bad dreams, nightmares.

Dave is always there, because Dave never sleeps, because Dave and Klaus are alike, in so many ways.

One day, they are sitting outside, looking at the sky, and people are sleeping, everybody is asleep but them, in the whole wide world, nobody exists, nothing exists except the space between his body and Dave’s, nothing exists except the inches between their lips.

Dave is a smoker. He smells like an ashtray and tastes like death, sometimes. Klaus can’t really judge, considering he is a hardcore drug addict. Hell, maybe it’s sick, but Dave manages to make smoking look beautiful, something worth watching.

One day, they are sitting outside, and Dave inhales, then speaks without exhaling, voice hoarse and low. “I miss him.”

So many people have died since they last kissed. Klaus doesn’t know the number, nobody does, they just try to count the bodies left alive, but so many people have died since they last kissed, a day ago, under the hot sun burning their bodies, hidden behind two trees.

One of their friends is dead now. It seems hard to believe. Klaus is getting used to all the death, he is getting used to killing, but still, there is something so wrong with friends dying that no matter what happens, you never expect it. You never think it’s gonna happen, you always think that it wouldn’t happen to you, but war spares no one, war spares nothing.

Then it’s Dave crying, then it’s Dave sobbing, then it’s Dave shaking in Klaus’ arms.

Klaus has learned at a young age to be quiet when he is crying. Locked in a basement where nobody but the dead can hear him, screaming didn’t change anything, sobbing didn’t change anything, and soon enough, Klaus learned to cry without even gasping.

Sometimes, he would cry, and only realize he is crying by the wetness of his cheeks. Crying is strange to Klaus, no matter how much he does it, it never feels right, it never fits.

When Dave cries, he cries, when it rains, it pours, and Dave sobs and he yells, and all his anger to the world, he shows, and Klaus knows that Dave has been hiding all his tears until this moment, he has been hiding them all so he could shed them in Klaus’ arms, where his lover can kiss his wet cheeks, taste the salt on his skin, under the starry night sky that's unjudging.

They spent the night there, and Klaus feels that, maybe, he could cry too, and maybe he could talk, maybe for the first time ever he has lungs, he has a mouth to speak.

He tells Dave about his dad, without really going into much details. It seems like such a small thing. There is a war going on, there are people dying, yet still, Klaus talks about his dad, he talks about being a kid, and Dave is amazing, Dave is unjudging, and he listens, and he talks, and together they cry, without once being ashamed of it.

Getting to know Dave is a lot like falling, and Klaus is fast falling in love, flying through the air, his whole body so light he is floating.

The war doesn’t seem so bad, then. As long as they have each other, as long as they can cry together, their lips tasting of salt from their tears, their mouths open and gasping.

Dying doesn’t seem so bad, then.

*

Klaus gets a tattoo. He has gotten a lot of tattoos in his life, but this one is the most meaningful, the only one with meaning, really, because Dave is there, right across from him, getting his own tattoo, and when they meet eyes, he winks.

Ben smiles a little, and Klaus tries not to look. “You are in love with him,” Ben says, and Klaus’ head snaps to him in an instant, almost scaring the guy tattooing him.

He can’t talk to Ben in public, because a lot of people go mad in war, and he doesn’t want Dave to think he is losing it too. After they have lost so many people, Klaus isn’t sure Dave could handle losing him.

“Don’t even try to deny it, Klaus,” Ben says, with a smug grin that seems soft and happy and proud, like Klaus won the lottery, but more meaningful. “I know you.”

Klaus doesn’t reply. Even if he could, he probably wouldn’t. He doesn’t know what to say, really. And maybe, he doesn’t want to argue, when it’s true that Ben knows him when it’s true that Klaus loves Dave in a way he hasn’t loved anybody before. It seems fruitless to deny it. Just because he loves Dave, doesn’t mean he has to say it.

Klaus is not good with words. He never has been. So, he loves Dave, he loves the man under his clothes, inside his chest, behind his ribs, hidden and _only for him_. He loves Dave, and it’s okay for him to do it.

*

Dave tells Klaus he loves him on a rainy day where there is nothing happening around them, when it’s quiet and dark and peaceful, when the moment is not perfect when the moment is just a moment; Dave tells Klaus he loves him, and it’s amazing.

Nobody has ever told Klaus they love him except for Mom, and she was a robot programmed to say all that pointless stuff you tell your kids, so it’s doesn’t really count, when she didn’t really mean it.

He thinks, maybe, Ben might love him, and he is the only person, but Ben has never told him that either, and you don’t realize the importance of it before you are in the middle of a war, really, you don’t understand what those words mean.

Looking back, it’s such a sad life that Klaus has lived, accomplishing nothing, loving no one and not being loved by anything.

He’s always craved it, now he understands. Seeing Luther and Allison, seeing _anyone_ that is capable of loving.

Such simple words, yet they mean everything, and Klaus only realizes that when he finally has all he ever wanted in his hands, right beside him, shoulders brushing.

“I love you,” Dave says, and it’s the first time Klaus has ever heard those words, it’s the first time he is left breathless and gasping, wide eyed and blinking, drowning and breathing, all at the same time.

Klaus is crying, when they finally kiss, and the inches between their lips that felt like miles a second ago disappear, leaving only a small room for love, and love is in the air, and love is inside Dave’s hand when he puts it on Klaus’ skin, gently touching, only feeling, and love is inside Klaus’ chest, filling his heart and filling his veins.

The kiss tastes of salt, from the one stray tear that was stubborn enough to leave, and Dave doesn’t mind, and Dave doesn’t leave, and Dave loves Klaus, and Klaus loves him.

*

It’s such a normal day. Klaus is used to the war now, as much as someone can be used to a thing so cruel; he is used to it in the way he is used to his ghosts, to the voices that keep screaming.

They are at the front line, in the heart of the battle going on all around them, because Dave thinks that he can help, because Dave believes that it will make a change, and Klaus can never say no to him.

Klaus doesn’t know what he says, because he says a lot of things just to fill the silence, even though there is no silence around them, even though everything is going boom or BOOM, even though people are dying in the background with Klaus’ ears ringing from the sound of bullets flying too close.

It’s a close call, and he feels the adrenalin rush through his body, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, and he almost shivers. War, is like drugs, in it’s own special way. It gives Klaus such a rush, a rush he needs to stay alive, but never really enjoys.

He says something, then. Yells, and feels his vocal cords vibrate. Dave doesn’t reply. Klaus is instantly worried. You learn stuff, in war. You adapt to it. You see the signs so much, you get familiar, you can recognize death anywhere you see it.

Turning Dave’s body around, it’s unmistakable, the life slipping between his fingertips like sand, and he clutches the air. His whole body is cold and the blood inside his veins is pure ice, freezing him, his limbs.

He screams, for a medic, for help, even though he knows they won’t come, because they never come, because people always die and there şs no way to save them from it, because it is war, and they are at the front line, because Dave thinks he can change something.

His death, Klaus knows, won’t change anything. Even though it should, because Dave is the last person that deserves to die like this, because Dave is the last person that deserves to die at all.

“Please,” Klaus begs, and he keeps talking, _and talking_ , holding Dave’s body in his arms like he can stop the man from going limb, going cold, like he can stop the man from dying.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Klaus chants, keeps repeating it like it’s a prayer tainting his sinner lips. “You’re fine,” Klaus says. He says a lot of things he doesn’t mean.

“Please stay with me,” and Dave could never say no to him but the body in his arms is not Dave anymore, it is a corpse, no longer with a soul, and colder than _his Dave_ had ever been.

The rest, he doesn’t remember. There is blood on his hands, though, when he takes out the briefcase again after so many months of it collecting dust in an abandoned corner. Before, he was too afraid to mess with it because he didn’t want to be sent to another place maybe even more fucked up. Then, him and Dave started getting closer, and Klaus wanted to stay, because the future held nothing of importance to him and the past had Dave to offer.

Now, he just opens the briefcase without a care because anything would be better than here, where without Dave the room is too big, too quiet; anywhere would be better than here because Dave’s ghost might be lingering somewhere, screaming, right that minute—

It is so easy to figure it out after that. He just has to put the date in. He almost laughs. Almost.

All this time, he could have just left—he never needed to fight in a war, he never needed to lose Dave—all of it, was for nothing—

He is crying, he realizes on the bus. It feels strange.

Thoughts are running through his head, but he can’t recognize them, he feels disconnected from his body. It’s not the first time this has happened—it’s just a normal Monday for him, at this point. But he has spent so long feeling in the moment and not just going through the motions as he is supposed to… It feels familiar, like an old friend that never left, but it feels unwelcome and awkward at the same time.

He has this one clear memory, of when he was seventeen or something, after leaving the academy, his first year spent homeless, without even a penny in his pocket, and not even one shred of doubt in his mind.

Back then, he had a lot of repressed sadness. He punched people, he punched walls, he punched mirrors. It was all because he couldn’t stand the sight of himself, the sound of his voice, his shadow that kept following him around, and all the voices that never shut up—he couldn’t stand any of it, so he took it out on his fists.

The clear memory is of him, with blood on his knuckles and a dozen pieces of a mirror on the ground where he lays, in the dirty bathroom of a one-night-stand he couldn’t bother to learn the name of.

He remembers looking at his hands, so scarred and so bare and so dirty and so pure—he remembers looking at his hands, and not recognizing them. They are too bloody to be his own, too big, too small. There is something wrong with them, Klaus is so sure.

Maybe it’s that his ass is bleeding or maybe it’s the bruises on his throat. Maybe it’s the drugs. Maybe it isn’t any of that, maybe it’s all of it. But in that moment, Klaus knows that he can’t live in a body that doesn’t belong to him any longer.

Picking up a shard of glass, he sees a flicker of his reflection on the mirror, a shell of the person he used to be, a shell of the person he always pretended to be, a shoe that he tried to force his foot in, a t-shirt that never fit.

Driving it through his skin is so painfully easy that Klaus can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him. Is’s a wonder that he hasn’t done it earlier, maybe in his dad’s bathroom, on Christmas or his birthday, or any other holiday they never celebrated, a gift for the man to find, just one act that belongs to Klaus and nobody else but him.

It hurts, but the drugs take the edge of it, and as blood spills to the dirty ground, Klaus knows that if he dies right then and there, nobody will mourn, nobody will notice, nobody will care, and there is something peaceful about that, about not existing, of never having existing.

Like his death will erase everything, and his death will end the world, in such a small way that it’s an apocalypse but only one serving.

He doesn't know why he is suddenly remembering that, if he is considering it—

The one person that loved him is now dead—has been dead for a long time, now.

Getting off the bus, Klaus looks at the briefcase in his hands. He could go to any timeline he wanted—he could go back to Dave, a time where Dave is still alive, and he could have it all again—but then, the briefcase is what brought all of this up in the first place, and Klaus knows what he has to do, then.

He destroys the briefcase, and then he yells like Dave taught him. He cries and sobs and lays down on the ground, the dirt sticking to his still bloody hands, tainting him, and he makes all the sounds he needs to make, there is nothing silent about him, then, all that he learned being erased, all of it being replaced by Dave, and he has never missed a person so much, so painfully, before.

Back home, he takes a bath. He tries to get the blood off, but it sticks to him like glue, or something even stronger, and he knows that if he manages to get it off his hands, it’s gonna be on his soul forever anyway, so after a while, he stops trying.

Lying there, in the now cold water, he shivers, and he bends, and he breaks, with blood on the bathtub and blood everywhere.

And all Klaus has left to prove that any of it happened and wasn’t just one fucked up dream is a pair of bloody dog tags, a tattoo on his arm, and the taste of ash sticking to the roof of his mouth.

When he cries, he doesn’t weep. It’s silent, because Dave is dead.


End file.
